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Anti-Americanism Dragging Canada Down...
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Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:17 am Post subject:

Summer Wine: out of all of your recent posts, not the ones attacking the Pentagon again and again, but even the non-Current Events posts that I've seen, this one immediately comes to mind, a thread on Country Western music that you started with these words...

Quote:

North Americans can't be all bad. The music is so humurous and fun to listen too [sic].

You weren't critical of the U.S. here. I recognize that you were paying Country Western musicians a compliment. As for me, I'm not particularly fond of this music.

But, in any case, look at how your "compliment" came out...North Americans can't be all bad. Well, thanks, I guess. Why couldn't you just start a thread saying that you liked Country Western music, though?

You've got antiAmerican issues. Worse, you are in denial about them.

EFLtrainer

Joined: 04 May 2005

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:24 am Post subject:

Gopher wrote:

Quote:

North Americans can't be all bad. The music is so humurous and fun to listen too [sic].

And you are in denial about calling people name/labeling them when they disagree with you to make them easy to dsimiss. And this after saying over and over how nothing is ever simple.... but apparently your opponents are.

Summer Wine

Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Location: Next to a River

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:45 am Post subject:

Oops me bad, I guess I should have made clear it was joke. It wasn't a crack at the Americans, it wasn't supposed to be taken serious. Its too stupid a sentence to be taken seriously by intelligent people. I like the music that I was listening too, the crack was about all the people who seem to hate americans without differentiating American policy and american icons. I guess I need to add in joke emoticons to some issues. My way of joking is to say something so obviously stupid that it can't be taken seriously, I guess some people don't get it. Oops.

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:09 am Post subject:

EFLtrainer wrote:

I don't have any "opponents" here, Thing II. But if you were one of them, you would be the most simplistic of them all.

Don't you have anything better to do than police my postings here?

EFLtrainer

Joined: 04 May 2005

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:10 am Post subject:

Gopher wrote:

EFLtrainer wrote:

I don't have any "opponents" here, Thing II. But if you were one of them, you would be the most simplistic of them all.

Ah, back to elementaryschool. That didn't take long. Shortest detente ever. But thank you for proving the point.

Alias

Joined: 24 Jan 2003

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 4:10 am Post subject:

EFLtrainer wrote:

Before today even as you posted it before. That still doesn't address the issue of how YOU think anti-Americanism is hurting Canada.

No case has been made at all. It has been turned into "it might" hurt Canada. And some article postings of right wing Canadians bitter that Canada didn't join the Iraq War.

Summer Wine

Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Location: Next to a River

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 4:16 am Post subject:

After rereading my posts on this topic, I realise that maybe I am not anti american as much as just not american.

Gopher wrote

Quote:

likewise, suffer from the tendency to resent the U.S. for showing, just by its very existence, how small Canada is in the world,[/b]

I felt that this could be construed not just as an insult against Canadians but every other nation who thinks differently from Americans. Well those Americans who hold these kinds of views, not all Americans mind you.

This was the first point that could be construed as Anti Americanism on this post, my disagreement with Gophers statement.

But on rereading what you (Gopher) had to say regarding your feelings about others, I realised that your claims about my anti americanism are no more than your own personality attitudes being revealed about others.

And I can understand that, look I disagree with nationalistic stupidity, my own country's, Yours, Koreas, Chinas, etc, etc etc. Pride on a national level has been the cause of more nation state violence than any other issue. It blinds us. Demeans us (the citizens) and spills our blood for its pride. (Oh, you mean be specific, well if you are a citizen and you support it then I guess you are included).

EFLtrainer

Joined: 04 May 2005

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 4:19 am Post subject:

Summer Wine wrote:

But on rereading what you (Gopher) had to say regarding your feelings about others, I realised that your claims about my anti americanism are no more than your own personality attitudes being revealed about others.

Join us, Thing III. We do need a woman about the place. Men, after all, are so predictable. Wink

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 4:35 am Post subject:

Does the World Hate the United States?

Quote:

On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked four passenger planes and flew two of them into the World Trade Center towers in New York City and one into the Pentagon. The fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Horrified Americans watched their television sets as people leapt to their deaths from the burning towers and thousands were crushed to death or suffocated under the ruins as the towers collapsed. They saw the enormous hole in the Pentagon smolder and viewed the bodies that littered the Pennsylvania field. Following these terrible images was shock at the realization that someone hated America enough to carry out such devastating attacks.

The September 11 terrorist attacks were the most devastating ever to occur in the United States, and they took many people by surprise. But as international reactions following the attacks revealed, anti-Americanism is not a new phenomenon. It already spanned the globe long before September 11, 2001. While after the attacks, anti-Americanism was slow to reveal itself in most countries, hatred for the United States was immediately and emphatically expressed throughout the Middle East.

Many Arab and Muslim people have long harbored great hatred and resentment for the United States. A major cause of that hatred is American involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict, which centers on a disagreement between Arabs and Israelis over Israel�s right to exist and the Israelis� treatment of Palestinian refugees. The majority of Arabs believe that America�s support for Israel�which includes financial and military aid�is hypocritical and harmful to Arabs. They claim, for example, that when Israelis commit terrorist attacks against Palestinians, the United States approves, calling the actions self-defense, while when Palestinians defend themselves, America condemns the actions, calling them terrorist attacks. It is America�s support of Israel, they say, that has made the continued oppression of the Palestinians possible.

Arabs� hatred of America became immediately evident when they applauded the September 11 attacks. Osama bin Laden, the terrorist leader believed to be responsible for the at- tacks, stated: �What America has experienced is God�s just punishment for the sufferings they have inflicted on the world of Islam.� He was not the only one to celebrate while Americans mourned the carnage in New York, however. Iraqi state television called the attacks the �operation of the century,� deserved by the United States because of its �crimes against humanity.� In Palestinian refugee camps across the Middle East, militants fired guns and cheered in celebration.

In the majority of countries around the world, however, anti-Americanism was not the first response to September 11; instead, any existing dislike of the superpower was temporarily overcome by compassion. Indeed, initially, most nations expressed deep sympathy for America�s tragedy. In the September 16, 2001, British Sunday Telegraph, an American in London recounted the compassion he received following the attack. He reported:

Cut off from America, I was nevertheless surrounded by goodwill. A saleswoman, hearing an American accent, asked quietly if I�d managed to talk to my parents. A Pakistani driver, teary-eyed, offered his condolences. An American friend told me he had received a sympathy card from his downstairs neighbors, who he barely knows.

Around the world, there were expressions of solidarity with America. In countries such as Australia, Japan, and Russia, people showed their sympathy by placing flowers outside U.S. consulates and embassies. Government buildings in Turkey lowered their flags to half-mast. In the streets of India, Hindus burned an effigy of Bin Laden in protest of the terrorists� actions. Many people emphasized their commonality with Americans. For example, German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said, �They were not only attacks on the people in the United States, our friends in America, but also against the entire civilized world, against our own freedom, against our own values, values which we share with the American people.�

However, despite their initial expressions of support for America, even these sympathetic nations had a long, underlying history of anti-Americanism. One of the major reasons for this resentment is American foreign policy. Other nations have accused America of being too aggressive, and of pursuing and protecting its own interests at the expense of other nations. Author Muqtedar Khan argues that America�s foreign policy has created hatred. He writes: �[America�s] exclusively self-regarding outlook, its arrogant unilateralism, its unwise and untrustworthy rhetoric and its belligerent posture, is alienating and angering people in the East and the West.� Khan echoes the belief held by many people around the world that the United States �wish[es] to reshape the world to perpetuate America�s imperial aspirations. Unfortunately for them the world is unwilling to cooperate. The harder they push the more resentment they will generate.�

In addition to its foreign policy, America�s culture, which has spread around the world, has elicited both jealousy and disapproval from many nations. One element of that culture is America�s way of life, which is often seen as wasteful and harmful to the environment. For example, statistics show that only 4 percent of the world�s population lives within the United States, yet America creates 25 percent of the world�s carbondioxide emissions. Popular culture�music, films, books, advertising, Web sites, and television�is America�s most visible and most pervasive export. Many people disapprove of the way of life portrayed in these products and fear the growing Americanization of the world. Writer James W. Caeser describes the strong dislike of U.S. culture that is found globally:

Anti-Americanism . . . is certainly nothing new. Over a half-century ago, the novelist Henry de Montherlant put the following statement in the mouth of one of his characters (a journalist): �One nation that manages to lower intelligence, morality, human quality on nearly all the surface of the earth, such a thing has never been seen before in the existence of the planet. I accuse the United States of being in a permanent state of crime against humankind.� America, from this point of view, is a symbol for all that is grotesque, obscene, monstrous, stultifying, stunted, leveling, deadening, deracinating, deforming, and rootless.

American journalist Charles Krauthammer recognizes the way that even nations who strive to emulate American culture may hate it at the same time. Writing in Time magazine, he contends that �envy for America, resentment of our power, hatred of our success has been a staple for decades.�

For as long as America has existed, there have been many people around the world who have disliked it for a variety of reasons, including its culture and its actions toward other nations. The September 11 attacks did not change that. Much of the initial outpouring of sympathy quickly evaporated to reveal this negative view of America. Soon there were accusations that America had deserved or even caused the attacks. Many people believed that through its aggressive foreign policy and its negative cultural influence on other countries, America had caused international hatred, which inevitably resulted in the terrorist attacks. Author Todd Gitlin agrees that sympathy for America�s loss was quickly replaced by accusations that it was partly to blame for the disaster. He writes:

As shock and solidarity overflowed on September 11, it seemed for a moment that political differences had melted in the inferno of Lower Manhattan. Plain human sympathy abounded amid a common sense of grief and emergency. Soon enough, however, old reflexes and tones cropped up here and there on the left, both abroad and at home�smugness, acrimony, . . . accompanied by the notion that the attacks were, well, not a just dessert, exactly, but . . . [a] damnable yet understandable payback . . . rooted in America�s own crimes of commission and omission . . . reaping what empire had sown.

American writer Harry Browne echoes this opinion. He argues that by its continued violent actions against other countries, America was doomed to eventually see violence against itself. He states: �[America�s] foreign policy has been insane for decades. It was only a matter of time until Americans would have to suffer personally for it. . . . When will we learn that we can�t allow our politicians to bully the world without someone bullying back eventually?�

The topic of anti-Americanism has been a source of widespread debate for years despite the fact that a large number of Americans often seemed unaware of it. As a result of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, many Americans became acutely aware of the world�s hatred for their country for the first time. The authors in At Issue: Does the World Hate the United States? offer various perspectives on the extent of anti-Americanism around the world. They also examine the causes of both love and hatred toward the United States, and the implications of these views for Americans.

http://www.enotes.com/world-hate-article

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0737723696/qid=1129206495/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-6403592-0627838?v=glance&s=books

Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee

Joined: 25 May 2003

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 4:43 am Post subject:

Yes they do and they did so well before Bush was president

The Falseness of Anti-Americanism

Pollsters report rising anti-Americanism worldwide. The United States, they imply, squandered global sympathy after the September 11 terrorist attacks through its arrogant unilateralism. In truth, there was never any sympathy to squander. Anti-Americanism was already entrenched in the world's psyche—a backlash against a nation that comes bearing modernism to those who want it but who also fear and despise it.

By Fouad Ajami

Quote:

WE WERE ALL AMERICANS
The introduction of the Pew report sets the tone for the entire study. The war in Iraq, it argues,"has widened the rift between Americans and Western Europeans" and "further inflamed the Muslim world." The implications are clear: The United States was better off before Bush's "unilateralism." The United States, in its hubris, summoned up this anti-Americanism. Those are the political usages of this new survey.

But these sentiments have long prevailed in Jordan, Egypt, and France. During the 1990s, no one said good things about the United States in Egypt. It was then that the Islamist children of Egypt took to the road, to Hamburg and Kandahar, to hatch a horrific conspiracy against the United States. And it was in the 1990s, during the fabled stock market run, when the prophets of globalization preached the triumph of the U.S. economic model over the protected versions of the market in places such as France, when anti-Americanism became the uncontested ideology of French public life. Americans were barbarous, a threat to French cuisine and their beloved language. U.S. pension funds were acquiring their assets and Wall Street speculators were raiding their savings. The United States incarcerated far too many people and executed too many criminals. All these views thrived during a decade when Americans are now told they were loved and uncontested on foreign shores.

Much has been made of the sympathy that the French expressed for the United States immediately after the September 11 attacks, as embodied by the famous editorial of Le Monde's publisher Jean-Marie Colombani, "Nous Sommes Tous Américains" ("We are all Americans"). And much has been made of the speed with which the United States presumably squandered that sympathy in the months that followed. But even Colombani's column, written on so searing a day, was not the unalloyed message of sympathy suggested by the title. Even on that very day, Colombani wrote of the United States reaping the whirlwind of its "cynicism"; he recycled the hackneyed charge that Osama bin Laden had been created and nurtured by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Colombani quickly retracted what little sympathy he had expressed when, in December of 2001, he was back with an open letter to "our American friends" and soon thereafter with a short book, Tous Américains? le monde après le 11 septembre 2001 (All Americans? The World After September 11, 2001). By now the sympathy had drained, and the tone was one of belligerent judgment and disapproval. There was nothing to admire in Colombani's United States, which had run roughshod in the world and had been indifferent to the rule of law. Colombani described the U.S. republic as a fundamentalist Christian enterprise, its magistrates too deeply attached to the death penalty, its police cruel to its black population. A republic of this sort could not in good conscience undertake a campaign against Islamism. One can't, Colombani writes, battle the Taliban while trying to introduce prayers in one's own schools; one can't strive to reform Saudi Arabia while refusing to teach Darwinism in the schools of the Bible Belt; and one can't denounce the demands of the sharia (Islamic law) while refusing to outlaw the death penalty. Doubtless, he adds, the United States can't do battle with the Taliban before doing battle against the bigotry that ravages the depths of the United States itself. The United States had not squandered Colombani's sympathy; he never had that sympathy in the first place.

Colombani was hardly alone in the French intellectual class in his enmity toward the United States. On November 3, 2001, in Le Monde, the writer and pundit Jean Baudrillard permitted himself a thought of stunning cynicism. He saw the perpetrators of September 11 acting out his own dreams and the dreams of others like him. He gave those attacks a sort of universal warrant: "How we have dreamt of this event," he wrote, "how all the world without exception dreamt of this event, for no one can avoid dreaming of the destruction of a power that has become hegemonic . . . . It is they who acted, but we who wanted the deed." Casting caution and false sympathy aside, Baudrillard saw the terrible attacks on the United States as an "object of desire." The terrorists had been able to draw on a "deep complicity," knowing perfectly well that they were acting out the hidden yearnings of others oppressed by the United States' order and power. To him, morality of the U.S. variety is a sham, and the terrorism directed against it is a legitimate response to the inequities of "globalization."

In his country's intellectual landscape, Baudrillard was no loner. A struggle had raged throughout the 1990s, pitting U.S.-led globalization (with its low government expenditures, a "cheap" and merciless Wall Street-Treasury Department axis keen on greater discipline in the market, and relatively long working hours on the part of labor) against France's protectionist political economy. The primacy the United States assigned to liberty waged a pitched battle against the French commitment to equity.

To maintain France's sympathy, and that of Le Monde, the United States would have had to turn the other cheek to the murderers of al Qaeda, spare the Taliban, and engage the Muslim world in some high civilizational dialogue. But who needs high approval ratings in Marseille? Envy of U.S. power, and of the United States' universalism, is the ruling passion of French intellectual life. It is not "mostly Bush" that turned France against the United States. The former Socialist foreign minister, Hubert Védrine, was given to the same anti-Americanism that moves his successor, the bombastic and vain Dominique de Villepin. It was Védrine, it should be recalled, who in the late 1990s had dubbed the United States a "hyperpower." He had done so before the war on terrorism, before the war on Iraq. He had done it against the background of an international order more concerned with economics and markets than with military power. In contrast to his successor, Védrine at least had the honesty to acknowledge that there was nothing unusual about the way the United States wielded its power abroad, or about France's response to that primacy. France, too, he observed, might have been equally overbearing if it possessed the United States' weight and assets.

His successor gave France's resentment highly moral claims. Villepin appeared evasive, at one point, on whether he wished to see a U.S. or an Iraqi victory in the standoff between Saddam Hussein's regime and the United States. Anti-Americanism indulges France's fantasy of past greatness and splendor and gives France's unwanted Muslim children a claim on the political life of a country that knows not what to do with them.

http://www.travelbrochuregraphics.com/extra/the_falseness_of_antiamericanism.htm

Quote:

Our War With France--By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN (September 18, 2003 )

It's time we Americans came to terms with something: France is not just our annoying ally. It is not just our jealous rival. France is becoming our enemy.

If you add up how France behaved in the run-up to the Iraq war (making it impossible for the Security Council to put a real ultimatum to Saddam Hussein that might have avoided a war), and if you look at how France behaved during the war (when its foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, refused to answer the question of whether he wanted Saddam or America to win in Iraq), and if you watch how France is behaving today (demanding some kind of loopy symbolic transfer of Iraqi sovereignty to some kind of hastily thrown together Iraqi provisional government, with the rest of Iraq's transition to democracy to be overseen more by a divided U.N. than by America), then there is only one conclusion one can draw: France wants America to fail in Iraq.

France wants America to sink in a quagmire there in the crazy hope that a weakened U.S. will pave the way for France to assume its "rightful" place as America's equal, if not superior, in shaping world affairs.

Yes, the Bush team's arrogance has sharpened French hostility. Had President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld not been so full of themselves right after America's military victory in Iraq — and instead used that moment, when the French were feeling that maybe they should have taken part, to magnanimously reach out to Paris to join in reconstruction — it might have softened French attitudes. But even that I have doubts about.

What I have no doubts about, though, is that there is no coherent, legitimate Iraqi authority able to assume power in the near term, and trying to force one now would lead to a dangerous internal struggle and delay the building of the democratic institutions Iraq so badly needs. Iraqis know this. France knows this, which is why its original proposal (which it now seems to be backtracking on a bit) could only be malicious.

What is so amazing to me about the French campaign — "Operation America Must Fail" — is that France seems to have given no thought as to how this would affect France. Let me spell it out in simple English: if America is defeated in Iraq by a coalition of Saddamists and Islamists, radical Muslim groups — from Baghdad to the Muslim slums of Paris — will all be energized, and the forces of modernism and tolerance within these Muslim communities will be on the run. To think that France, with its large Muslim minority, where radicals are already gaining strength, would not see its own social fabric affected by this is fanciful.

If France were serious, it would be using its influence within the European Union to assemble an army of 25,000 Eurotroops, and a $5 billion reconstruction package, and then saying to the Bush team: Here, we're sincere about helping to rebuild Iraq, but now we want a real seat at the management table. Instead, the French have put out an ill-conceived proposal, just to show that they can be different, without any promise that even if America said yes Paris would make a meaningful contribution.

But then France has never been interested in promoting democracy in the modern Arab world, which is why its pose as the new protector of Iraqi representative government — after being so content with Saddam's one-man rule — is so patently cynical.

Clearly, not all E.U. countries are comfortable with this French mischief, yet many are going along for the ride. It's stunning to me that the E.U., misled by France, could let itself be written out of the most important political development project in modern Middle East history. The whole tone and direction of the Arab-Muslim world, which is right on Europe's doorstep, will be affected by the outcome in Iraq. It would be as if America said it did not care what happened in Mexico because it was mad at Spain.

Says John Chipman, director of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies: "What the Europeans are saying about Iraq is that this is our backyard, we're not going to let you meddle in it, but we're not going to tend it ourselves."

But what's most sad is that France is right — America will not be as effective or legitimate in its efforts to rebuild Iraq without French help. Having France working with us in Iraq, rather than against us in the world, would be so beneficial for both nations and for the Arabs' future. Too bad this French government has other priorities.

THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN is a foreign affairs corrspondent for the New York Times.

http://www.geocities.com/munichseptember1972/friedman_our_war_with_france.htm

Alias

Joined: 24 Jan 2003

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 4:52 am Post subject:

Quote:

Pollsters report rising anti-Americanism worldwide. The United States, they imply, squandered global sympathy after the September 11 terrorist attacks through its arrogant unilateralism. In truth, there was never any sympathy to squander.

France, Germany and Canada all have/had troops in Afghanistan. It was Iraq that caused the problem.

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 4:55 am Post subject:

Summer Wine: I believe this was what offended you.

Gopher wrote:

...to resent the U.S. for showing, just by its very existence, how small Canada is in the world.

Other posters question whether there are consequences for Canadians and their institutional antiAmericanism.

How about this? Four years old, yes. Very pertinent to this thread, though...

Quote:

Yes, Bush Did Snub Canada. So What?
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 28, 2001

EVER SINCE President Bush snubbed Canada by not mentioning the country in his address to Congress, many Canadians have been traumatized.

Almost everywhere I go in Toronto, I hear the same thing over and over again: "He insulted us. He didn�t even mention us. How could he do this to us?"

The little thing I can�t help noticing is that every single person I hear complaining about this is an anti-American. In every political conversation I have had with one of these people, I have heard nothing but disdain of American society and foreign policy. But now, all of a sudden, these individuals want to be praised by the Americans for being "great friends."

I can�t help thinking of a sidekick "friend" of mine that a group of us grew up with. If a street fight ever occurred, all of us always knew that this character didn�t have our backs. Not only that, he constantly talked badly about us. But all the while, he consistently complained to everyone that we didn�t include him in our "group."

If you don�t know what egocentrism is, now you know.

In his remarkable speech, Bush praised a number of countries that agreed to help the U.S. in its war against terrorism. With British Prime Minister Tony Blair in attendance, the President declared: "America has no truer friend than Great Britain." Canada was not mentioned once.

Oh well.

If you want respect from Americans, then it is probably a good idea not to have a public broadcasting system, the CBC, which engages in non-stop expressions of animosity toward them. From the moment the tragic horror on September 11 occurred, the CBC was filled with arrogant and smug criticism of the potential American military response. Every program discussed how the U.S. had to behave with "caution" and that Canada had to avoid becoming complicit in any American "warmongering."

Almost all of Canadian national media, except the superb National Post, argued vehemently against joining the war against terrorism. That�s because Canadian nationalism prioritizes the demonstration of Canada�s "independence" above all else. Indeed, if Canadians show their readiness to fight against terrorism, then they just might be seen as submitting to the Americans. And we couldn�t have that now could we?

The Canadian nation has yet to find a way to express or define its identity without anti-Americanism. Canadians are Canadians because, well, they are not Americans. Thus, when Americans get ready to fight a war on terrorism, Canadians make sure that they don�t. That way, they can remind everyone, including themselves, that they are not Americans.

But the little brother complex has its consequences. You reap what you sow when you intentionally poke a stick into the eye of your neighbor just to show how "sovereign" you are.

Ever since the late 1950s, Canadian foreign and defense policy has been a disgrace. For instance, because the United States conflicted with Communist dictators such as Fidel Castro, Canada, especially under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, went out of its way to nurture good relations with the brutal despot.

Just recently, Canada's decision to stay at the United Nations' racist "anti-racist" conference in Durban, South Africa was no surprise at all. By staying, Canada lent credibility to pernicious anti-Semitism on display there.

But it had to stay and do that, because the United States had walked out. And Canadians couldn�t be like the Americans now could they?

Canada�s immigration laws have been a disaster. Almost anyone and everyone is allowed into the country with hardly any security checks -� all in the name of multiculturalism" and "tolerance." That is why Canada is now a harbor for terrorists � who have dozens of cells throughout the country. A good handful of the mass murderers who hijacked the planes on September 11 entered the U.S. through Canada.

Canadian nationalists� sensibilities were just recently bruised because Canada was not singled out by George Bush as a great American friend. But to be singled out one has to single oneself out. You don�t spit in the face of a friend for an entire generation and then get mad when he doesn�t call you his best friend.

The time for the Canadian little brother to grow up is long overdue. But the way things look, he will never do that. He is addicted to his rebellious adolescence. Not being like "those Americans" has become far too intoxicating � and far more important than standing up for the values and principles upon which Western civilization is based.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=247

Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee

Joined: 25 May 2003

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 5:07 am Post subject:

Alias wrote:

Quote:

France, Germany and Canada all have/had troops in Afghanistan. It was Iraq that caused the problem.

How many?

Canada 1,000

Germany 1,900

France 600

Most of them are doing peace keeping

How many does the US have in Bosnia? 5000

many of these events happend when Clinton was president.

Why did France want to keep Nato special forces out of Afghanistan?
Why did France want to lift Sanctions on Iraq when Saddam was in power but why were they against lifting them when Saddam was first overthrown? Why did France refuse to recognize the Iraqi governing council (they said it was not legitmate -like Saddams' government was?) Why did France oppose no fly zones?Why did France oppose smart sanctions on Iraq?Why did France oppose US missile defense?Why did France oppose US sanctions on Iran and Cuba?Why did France oppose US efforts to label Hamas and Hezzbollah terror organizations? Why did France and the EU work to block the merger of Honeywell and GE, Why did France make Boeing pay through the nose to merge with Mcdonald Douglas.

Quote:

France vetoes Afghan mission

By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

France yesterday blocked a U.S.-backed plan to use a special NATO force to safeguard elections in Afghanistan this fall, despite a plea from Afghan leaders that the troops are badly needed.
French President Jacques Chirac's veto of the plan on the second and final day of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's summit in Istanbul was the latest in a string of direct rebukes to President Bush in recent days and a sign that French-U.S. relations have not overcome the bitter divisions stemming from the Iraq war last year.

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040630-120807-9389r.htm

Germany

Quote:

At a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Romania on Wednesday, Germany objected to Washington's proposal for NATO forces to take over the US military mission in Afghanistan as part of next year's reorganization efforts.

German Defense Minister Peter Struck, who met NATO counterparts including US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for informal talks in Romania, told reporters he opposed the proposal to integrate the NATO peacekeeping force in Afghanistan within the 18,000 strong US-led combat mission fighting remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1360150,00.html

TROOPS: NATO-led peacekeepers such as these patrolling Kabul last month, will not see large deployments of fellow troops, which officials say NATO countries are reluctant to commit.
AHMAD MASOOD/REUTERS

NATO far from relieving US forces in Afghanistan

Quote:

You can't make a plan until you know who will give what," says Squadron Leader Paul Rice, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul. "We're going to piece together whatever we can get our hands on."

So far that amounts to little more than 5,700 troops.

Quote:

The 18 non-US countries in the alliance have between them a total of 1.5 million regular troops as well as 7,000 helicopters and other air-power capabilities, officials say.

Despite this, ISAF in Kabul currently has only three helicopters, and relies on the US military to provide close air support, medical evacuations, and resupply.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1209/p07s01-wosc.html

Quote:

The United States began building the coalition on September 12, 2001, and there are currently 70 nations supporting the global war on terrorism. To date, 21 nations have deployed more than 16,000 troops to the U.S. Central Command��s region of responsibility. This coalition of the willing is working hard every day to defeat terrorism, wherever it may exist.

In Afghanistan alone, our coalition partners are contributing nearly 8,000 troops to Operation Enduring Freedom and to the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul – making up over half of the 15,000 non-Afghan forces in Afghanistan. The war against terrorism is a broad-based effort that will take time. Every nation has different circumstances and will participate in different ways. This mission and future missions will require a series of coalitions ready to take on the challenges and assume the risks associated with such an operation.

Wow 8,000 troops . Take away the forces of England and Austalia and how many do you get then?

Ya-ta Boy

Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 5:20 am Post subject:

Quote:

Ah! One of the few truly on-topic posts in this thread! Good on ya. Even though these are real issues, a good discussion is always welcomed and it is possible it could be a big issue someday, I still consider this a minor issue in the grand scheme of things.

Getting a compliment from some people, even one as mild as this one, is like getting frenched by your sister. Objectively, the sensation is pleasurable, but you have to consider the source.

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 5:23 am Post subject:

Harvey M. Sapolsky is Professor of Public Policy and Organization in the Department of Political Science and Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Security Studies Program.

Quote:

Cambridge, MA � Canada is a security threat to the United States. It is a shocking fact, because Americans are used to thinking that Canadians are our friends, and that Canada is the source of nothing more dangerous than some of our winter weather and most of our hockey players. It is not that Canada possesses great military power; we know that Canada barely bothers these days to maintain an army. On the contrary, it is precisely because Canada is so weak, militarily and culturally, that it acts to harm America's security interests.

Anti-Americanism is the unstated essence of the modern Canadian identity.

In the 1960s, Canada began to drastically reduce its military, which until then had always been at Britain's side, if not America's. Canada's NATO contribution, never large, faded to insignificant long before the Berlin Wall came down in November, 1989. It withdrew its soldiers and airmen from Europe entirely at the end of the Cold War.

In the 1990s, while continuing to cut its armed forces, Canada briefly sought an international reputation in peacekeeping, but greatly tempered this initiative after disastrous experiences in Somalia, where its troops misbehaved, and in Rwanda, where its leadership was ignored. Today, the Canadian military numbers about 60,000 and Canada spends only about 1% of GDP on "defence."

The value of British ties faded with the decline in Britain's power and the rise of separatist sentiment in Quebec. The threat of being absorbed not by a conquering but by a thriving America was also real after the Second World War. Canada had to find an identity as something other than Britain's North American outpost. It has been building that identity ever since. In 1982, it brought home its Constitution from Britain and with it a new Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a Canadian version of the American Bill of Rights.

But a constitution does not a country make, and Canada still has to worry about the big identity thief to the south. A Canadian idol has become a Canadian who succeeded in America. Many professional and industrial associations have blended between the nations, with the really big prizes almost always located in the south. Although very few Americans know or care who the prime minister of Canada is, most Canadians not only know the names of several American politicians, but have strong preferences among them. It is no wonder that Canada reveres its problem-laden health care system, because Canada is very close to being America with but one distinction � universal health care.

Canada's search for additional national distinction has led it to adopt an anti-American foreign policy. The Vietnam War coincided with attempts to solidify a non-British identity in Canada. Canadian abstention from the war made the harbouring of American draft avoiders possible, as did the division over the war in the United States. Canadian politicians learned that opposing American foreign policy was popular at home and carried little risk to Canada of American retaliation.

When Canada helped some Americans to get out of Tehran during the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1979, it bought a decade of American goodwill. The token dispatch of two warships and a squadron of fighter aircraft was enough to give it full credit during the first Gulf War in 1991. But being an American foreign policy opponent has more advantages than being an American partner.

Without costs, many around the world shake a fist at America. The American public barely notices and holds few grudges. But opposing America can seem like standing up to Goliath at home. It can give the appearance of independence to nations that are hopelessly dependent.

Low grade anti-Americanism on Canada's part is surely tolerable. It is probably the glue that holds Canada together, and Americans should want Canada to stick together. Otherwise, the U.S. might be paying for the Maritime provinces and trying to figure out what to do with Quebec.

Moreover, anti-Americanism may well be the international norm these days given the disparities in power that exist and our own unilateralist tendencies.

If it makes most Canadians, or perhaps just most Canadian officials, feel good about themselves for Canada to cultivate an image of the kinder, gentler, more nuanced North American country, then so what? Canada's refusal to support America's invasion of Iraq may be in this mode. Calls by Canada for the United States to give more time for inspections to work or to take no action without United Nations approval, may have been annoying to senior U.S. administration officials, but were understandable Canadian positions.

Canada was not going to contribute anyway, and we were going to go ahead whether or not Canada agreed. No one much cared what Canada said or did.

The more reprehensible Canadian behavior has been that which has potential for harmfully constraining our military actions and putting our soldiers permanently at risk. One example is the Ottawa Treaty Banning Landmines, which the Canadian Foreign Minister at the time, Lloyd Axworthy, orchestrated in 1997. The Treaty, whose formulation involved unusually extensive participation by non-governmental organizations including various humanitarian relief and anti-war groups, bans the manufacture, possession, transfer, and use of anti-personnel devices that explode on contact or in proximity with a person so as to incapacitate, injure or kill.

Banned also are so-called anti-handling devices often used with anti-vehicle mines. The argument was that the dangers of mines persist long after wars, with these weapons lying in wait most often in unmarked or forgotten locations to kill and maim the innocent who pass by or try to work the land.

The United States has refused to sign the treaty in part because it maintains marked and fenced mine fields along the inter-Korean border to hinder possible North Korean attacks, but also because it has developed and equipped its forces with replacement mines that are scattered rather than emplaced, and that are set with timers to self-destruct after a battle, thus posing no risk to returning civilians. These devices were not exempt in formulating the ban because, as one organizer put it, "we didn't want to give the United States any advantage." At Canada's urging, most of our allies, including nearly all of our NATO partners, have signed the Treaty, which means essentially that we can not ever deploy mines if we seek coalition partners because it is unlawful for signatory nations to join in warfare with landmine users.

Because American forces do nearly all of the fighting these days done by Western militaries, it will be American soldiers who will be most often unprotected by defensive minefields. American soldiers, of course, will still face the dangers of landmines. The treaty has little effect on fighting in the poorer regions of the world, because few local participants pay attention to the ban and because unsophisticated mines are cheap to make and easy to plant.

Another example of Canada working against American security interests and potentially placing American soldiers in jeopardy is Canada's promotion of the International Criminal Court. A Canadian diplomat presided over the negotiations that produced the treaty creating the court, which Canada championed as the rightful legacy of the Nuremberg trials and the forum where the perpetrators of evils like that which occurred in Rwanda and Bosnia will be brought to justice. President Bush renounced the accepting signature that President Clinton gave the International Criminal Court treaty in his last days in office but never forwarded to the Senate, saying that the treaty would give license to politically driven prosecutors to indict Americans serving in overseas stability and peacekeeping operations.

With America taking the initiative to bring order to so many different parts of the world, it needed to protect its soldiers from the easy retaliation that an International Criminal Court trial would offer those who sympathize with our enemies. Canada has strongly opposed U.S. attempts to gain an extended exemption for U.S. forces from the court's jurisdiction. It seems likely that one day soon an American soldier will be heading to the Hague for judgment, with all the political consequences that will involve.

Canada's role in drafting these treaties is not the result of former Prime Minister Jean Chretien's obvious and, at times, crudely expressed dislike for President George W. Bush and his administration. The treaties were initiated well before President Bush took office, when Chretien's good friend Bill Clinton was the president. Because they intentionally undermine America's military equities, the treaties seem to represent a deeper and more dangerous decision by Canada's foreign policy establishment to lead the international effort to hobble the American military. Canada appears not to be just searching for a virtuous image or opportunistically expressing a mild brand of anti-Americanism. It seems to be on a Lilliputian quest to bind our power.

When a threat comes from a friend, and a weak one at that, it is largely ignored. American military-to-military relations with Canada are extensive, with Canada receiving a lot more than it gives in return. Hundreds of Canadian officers and enlisted personnel are embedded in American units, given training at American military facilities and exposed to American military staff planning procedures. Canadian ships often sail as part of U.S. battle groups. Canadian air force squadrons make exchange flights to U.S. bases. The deputy commander of the North American Aerospace Defence Command is a Canadian general, but so, too, is the deputy commander of the U.S. Army's III Corps. Ironically, even though Canada opposes our role in Iraq, III Corps recently deployed to Iraq with the Canadian general still serving as the deputy commander and issuing orders to American forces.

Canadian defence firms are included in the U.S. defence industrial base and therefore get privileged access to U.S. defence procurement dollars. But when Canada buys defence equipment from U.S. defence firms, it demands offsets, which is equivalent to double dipping. Thus do Billions of dollars in U.S. weapon purchases follow toward Canada. Two-thirds of the Stryker vehicles, the U.S. Army's new combat troop carrier, are made in Canada. So, too, is a significant portion of our ammunition.

Canada's freeriding is both impossible to stop and ultimately limited. We are going to protect the continent with or without Canada's help. We are going to fight wars whether or not Canadian forces accompany our own. Given the likely effect of another terrorist attack on the nearly indistinguishable Canadian and U.S. economies, Canada can have no problem in working co-operatively with U.S. authorities to prevent infiltration by al-Qaeda members.

Canada does not have to spend much on its military, and it knows it, but Canada also is not suicidal. From a physical security/military assistance perspective, we have what we need from Canada and always will.

But Americans should be concerned about � and not tolerate � Canada seeking a leading role in the global coalition to thwart American power needed to protect U.S. citizens and interests. Canada has given up on warfare; it can afford to, though the U.S. cannot.

When Canada calls for a ban on the instruments of warfare or wants to put in criminal jeopardy those who fight, it knowingly handicaps American action.

There is nothing friendly or neighbourly about placing deployed U.S. forces at additional risk. There has to be a line where Canadian foreign policy cannot cross. Canada's anti-Americanism, so necessary for its independence, should not find an international stage. Subsidizing cultural events to reinforce a weak national identity is one thing; constraining American military advantage is another.

The recent decision by Prime Minister Paul Martin not to have Canada participate in the U.S. missile ballistic defence program shows how insensitive the Canadian government has become to U.S. politics. The Left in America has all but given up fighting ballistic missile defence, which is a sacred component of the Republican Party creed. Security fears, real or ginned up, govern American presidential politics post-9/11, as do Republicans. Lulled by the Clinton Administration's apparent unwillingness to assert America's military equities against Canadian diplomatic adventures, Canadian politicians think they have only to contend with their own domestic pressures when thinking about defence. Confrontation surely lies ahead unless Canada recognizes both its growing dependency on its neighbour to the south and the renewed intensity of America's security concerns.

It is time to give Canada some attention and a bit of a warning. Canada is easy to squeeze. The military trade preferences should end. The tag-along trips and the combat observation opportunities should stop. The Canadian military surely carries little weight in Canadian politics and these are small steps, but signals should be sent saying that there can be even greater costs ahead for Canada if it continues its international meddling at our expense and forgets its geography. The Canadian economy is highly vulnerable. Just as we know where Arctic blasts come from, Canada should know where its own economic prosperity originates.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1453202/posts

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